Appoint Team Leaders
Appoint team leaders for each cell, which will be made up of approximately six to twenty employees. This is a company-wide approach, from senior management all the way down to front-line employees. Any member of management can simply step in and join the workout with any of the teams to promote their relationships with employees while working on their own fitness and demonstrating, by example, how important this is. Management participation is a non-threatening way for senior- and mid-level management to join in on what is offered as serious fun with special emphasis on fun and teambuilding.
Decide on how best to organize your initial team cells and appoint team leaders or coordinators (one for each cell). Then, assign one individual to support all team coordinators of all the cells and to track the programs. That individual could be the wellness coordinator, supervisor, manager or some other employee. That individual should already possess a heightened level of enthusiasm for fitness and have a desire to help others.
Different Fitness Levels Train Together
All fitness levels train together. Have all employees sign a waiver for the program. If any members have medical issues, those employees would then only perform those exercises that are permissible by their physician; for example, walking but no jogging, no abs work, no squats or lunges due to knee injury. Often a simple modification of an exercise is possible. Those with medical restrictions would then perform their alternative exercises during the time the rest of the team is performing their (unmodified) exercise; or they will simply modify the team's exercise to a safe range of motion suitable to their medical limitation.
Organize Fitness Cells
Those employees who work together on a regular basis should be organized as a part of the same fitness cell. You can organize the cells by department or cross-departmental. Have managers or peers come together; mix various management levels. Rearrange the mix of employees every six months, if you desire. Whether your business is customer service, sales, banking, law office staff, fire and rescue, hospital staff, law enforcement, school, college or university, or small business with a handful of employees, boot camp fitness cells are right for you.
Indoors or Outdoors
Another exciting aspect of fitness boot camp is these workouts can be done anywhere, whether indoors or outdoors. Keep it interesting by changing workout location, where feasible, and look for opportunities to incorporate your environment into your workout. For example, park benches are great for performing dips, and the entire team can wrap their resistance bands - also called exercise tubes - around a tree for a group upper-body exercise.
Flexible
You choose a time to fit your schedule. Whether it is 10, 20, 30 or 60 minutes for fitness boot camp, it all adds up to an accumulative health benefit. I strongly recommend at least twice a week, once a week at a minimum, as a part of a corporate program with emphasis that the employees work out four to six times per week all told. If you cannot schedule fitness boot camp twice a week, schedule the frequency that will work. Make it a part of your corporate culture and your employees will take this into their private fitness routines. There is a clear connection between fitness and workplace performance.
Combine Workout with a Business Meeting
Combine a meeting with fitness boot camp. There is no better way to get those creative juices flowing while problem solving than to engage in hearty exercise. Start with an issue to be considered or a problem to be solved, and then perform an exercise or two. Stop and discuss. Then do it again with the next agenda point, until all issues and muscle groups have been addressed. Who says you cannot combine work with pleasure?
Anyone Can Do It
The training is easy, and the exercises are very basic and easy to perform. The mix of exercises follows the principles of simplicity and fun. Technically, this is called functional training. Functional training focuses on training the body how it is used in activities of daily life.
Train the Trainers
Once you have identified your trainers, they need to be trained. To implement this program the trainers will only need a few basic exercises. Start with these basics and, with time, gradually introduce new exercises. The trainers are not just watching. They are performing the exercises with their team members as they guide and encourage them through the workout.